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SOCCER / World cup
Feb 16, 2010

Okada escapes sack

Under-fire national team manager Takeshi Okada will lead Japan at the World Cup after surviving showdown talks with Japan Football Association president Motoaki Inukai on Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2010

The best way to rebuild Haiti

WASHINGTON — In the wake of the devastating earthquake, there has been an outpouring of international support for Haiti. The first priority has been saving lives. That means getting water, food, shelter, medicine and other basic supplies to victims. The first rush must be backed up by an ongoing logistics...
COMMENTARY
Jan 13, 2010

Asia's changing dynamics

With Asia in transition and the specter of a power imbalance looming large, it has become imperative to invest in institutionalized cooperation to reinforce the region's strategic stability. After all, not only is Asia becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but Asian challenges are also playing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2010

Grandmasters and the future of global growth

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the global economy limps out of the last decade and enters a new one in 2010, what will be the next big driver of global growth? Here's betting that the "teens" is a decade in which artificial intelligence hits escape velocity, and starts to have an economic impact on par with...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 28, 2009

The Dubai shock: What to learn from our previous bubbles

With one real estate megaproject after another, including an man-made resort island shaped like a coconut tree and the world's tallest skyscraper, Dubai has been aiming to turn the tiny emirate into the financial center of the Middle East.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2009

Recognizing confident India as indispensable

PARIS — "Do not forget India." That warning made sense 10 or 15 years ago; not any longer. India is now impossible to ignore, much less forget, owing not only to its rapid economic growth but also to the country's increasing geopolitical stature.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 20, 2009

Alexandria's library: A phoenix amid the tea fields of Uji

Recalling the glorious Heian Period in Japan's history from 794 to 1185 at once conjures up images of a world of courtiers, 12-layered kimono, elegant poetry competitions beside winding streams — and secret trysts in scented chambers.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2009

Realities of disarmament

WATERLOO, Canada — The international commission on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, chaired by former foreign ministers Gareth Evans of Australia and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Japan, faced two hurdles even before its work was completed.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2009

Realizing an assertive post-American Europe

PARIS — As U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Sweden to collect his Nobel Prize, the celebrations expose an awful truth: Europe's admiration for its ideal of an American president is not reciprocated. Obama seems to bear Europeans no ill will. But he has quickly learned to view them with the attitude...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2009

Food security must rank with climate efforts

BRUSSELS — There are plenty of summits to choose from this year, but the World Summit on Food Security deserves not to be lost in the crowd. This meeting in Rome from Monday to Wednesday provides badly needed political momentum to three linked issues that rank among the most challenging of the current...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 14, 2009

Trapattoni likes Ireland's chances in playoff

LONDON — The Republic of Ireland takes on France and FIFA on Saturday in the first leg of a 2010 World Cup playoff.
COMMENTARY
Nov 12, 2009

Re-energizing America's role in trade talks

International trade has been an engine of growth for many Asian countries, enabling them to create jobs and raise living standards faster than in countries elsewhere in the world that were unready to take advantage of surging trade opportunities.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 7, 2009

Yoko Ono, forever a force for peace

Even before she married John Lennon, even before she embarked on a career as an avant-garde and conceptual artist, Yoko Ono was under scrutiny, first by her teachers and peers, later by people of a different region as her family fled the fire-bombings of Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2009

Recalling a saint's legacy to leprosy victims

In early October, "Father Damien" was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. This religious and spiritual ceremony is an opportunity to reflect on Father Damien's life and the lives of those with whom he was most closely associated — people affected by leprosy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2009

A-bomb cities offer Obama invite

A speech and a Nobel prize have raised hopes in Japan that Barack Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the two cities devastated by U.S. atomic bombs in World War II.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2009

How Japan can regain its vitality

Last November, two months after the inauguration of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso, I predicted, in an opinion piece for the American magazine Science, that a sweeping change in Japanese government was imminent.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2009

China worries neighbors as its navy comes of age

SINGAPORE — China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has made great strides in recent years as it seeks to come of age. While moving to demonstrate its clout, it also seems to recognize the need to reassure others that the intentions behind its modernization program are peaceful.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 24, 2009

U.S. sprint stars Gay, Felix cruise to easy victories in 100

Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix did not have their best races, but still lived up to top billing as both triumphed in a comfortable manner.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2009

Stabilizing Africa's Horn

STRASBOURG, France — After almost two decades as a failed state torn by civil war, perhaps the world should begin to admit that Somalia — as it is currently constructed — is beyond repair.
COMMENTARY
Sep 13, 2009

Political fancies at the Venice Film Festival

VENICE — Often great films tell great political stories. Or, at least they unfold against the backdrop of tumultuous political events. "Gone with a Wind" would never let us forget the American Civil War. "Casablanca" was set against the exodus of hundreds of people fleeing Nazi tyranny to the New World....
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2009

Less water for more food as Asia urbanizes

SINGAPORE — Industrialization and urbanization across Asia have encouraged the misconception that they are the main gluttons of water. But the dominant force in Asian water consumption is agriculture.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 23, 2009

Imagine a time with no fish in the sea

BAR HARBOR MAINE — Each summer, our family visits this part of the New England coast, and each year I am reminded of the elemental connections humans share with the oceans.
COMMENTARY
Aug 23, 2009

Japan has plenty of work to do in transforming how it governs

The world is changing dramatically and political governance is at stake.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2009

Japan, Brazil sow seeds of hope in Mozambique

Prime Minister Taro Aso's list of diplomatic accomplishments may be short but Japan's latest aid project in southeastern Africa could eventually become a key resource to support the nation's food security.
EDITORIALS
Aug 6, 2009

Strive for nuclear disarmament

As Japan marks the 64th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world sees two forces working in opposite directions when it comes to the issue of nuclear weapons.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 26, 2009

A peaceful challenge against globalization

London's famous Ritz Hotel boarded its windows, construction sites were cleared of rubble and bankers were warned to stay home. The event was the April 2009 meeting of the Group of 20, and no effort was spared to protect the visiting dignitaries — and financial district — from demonstrations by anti-...
COMMENTARY
Jul 22, 2009

Protectionist trend on the rise

In the English language the word "Protection" sounds warm and friendly. Everyone needs protection against the storms of life and it is nice to give protection and be protected. But lift this innocent word into the international sphere and it becomes a sinister and ominous concept, a harbinger of narrow...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan